Policies and Mission

Policies

You may schedule two 45-minute appointments per week, but not on the same day. If space permits, you can have additional walk-in visits throughout the week, but not on the same day as another appointment, scheduled or unscheduled.

If you have a draft, please bring two printed copies. Also bring your assignment sheet, any notes or relevant texts, and your questions. Proofread your draft for errors before your visit.

If you need to cancel or will be a few minutes late, call the Writing Center at x6085. If you are more than 10 minutes late, we will give your appointment to someone else. If you "no-show" twice without calling to cancel, you will lose appointment privileges for the semester, though you can still have walk-in sessions.

All appointments are strictly confidential. If a professor refers you to the Writing Center, he or she will receive an acknowledgement that you visited, but the details of the session will remain confidential.

Under no circumstance will we do a "quick check" of a paper right before a deadline. The more time you leave before a due date, the more we can help.

IMPORTANT: The Writing and Speaking Center is not a computer lab; the printer and computers are reserved for use only during appointments. Thank you for understanding.

Mission

Serving undergraduates at Colgate, the Writing and Speaking Center is committed to the improvement of writers of all levels and abilities. Our peer consultants work with writers from all disciplines at any stage of the writing process. We recognize that a student’s visit to the center indicates a motivation to write, and we, in turn, are motivated to work with the writer who comes to see us.

The center aims to build confident and accomplished writers by helping students develop strong cognitive and composing skills. We approach students' texts as works in progress, and we think of writing first as a method for the discovery and development of ideas. The primary objective of any session is that the writer, not necessarily the text, will be changed.

The center adheres firmly to the university honor code as outlined in the student handbook. We do not write or edit any portion of a student’s paper, as this threatens the student’s ownership of the text under discussion. Sessions are confidential except in cases where the director deems it necessary to discuss the student's work with a professor or academic dean, or in cases where the student has given express permission for such discussion to occur.